Day 227 The Bible in a Year (Orthodox canon)

Job 9

1 Then Job answered and said, 2 I know of a truth that it is so: for how shall a mortal man be just before the Lord? 3 For if he would enter into judgment with him, [God] would not hearken to him, so that he should answer to one of his charges of a thousand. 4 For he is wise in mind, and mighty, and great: who has hardened himself against him and endured? 5 Who wears out the mountains, and [men] know it not: who overturns them in anger. 6 Who shakes the [earth] under heaven from its foundations, and its pillars totter. 7 Who commands the sun, and it rises not; and he seals up the stars. 8 Who alone has stretched out the heavens, and walks on the sea as on firm ground. 9 Who makes Pleias, and Hesperus, and Arcturus, and the chambers of the south. 10 Who does great and unsearchable things; glorious also and excellent things, innumerable. 11 If ever he should go beyond me, I shall not see him: if he should pass by me, neither thus have I known [it]. 12 If he would take away, who shall turn him back? or who shall say to him, What hast thou done? 13 For [if] he has turned away [his] anger, the whales under heaven have stooped under him. 14 Oh then that he would hearken to me, or judge my cause. 15 For though I be righteous, he will not hearken to me: I will intreat his judgment. 16 And if I should call and he should not hearken, I cannot believe that he has listened to my voice. 17 Let him not crush me with a dark storm: but he has made my bruises many without cause. 18 For he suffers me not to take breath, but he has filled me with bitterness. 19 For indeed he is strong in power: who then shall resist his judgment? 20 For though I should seem righteous, my mouth will be profane: and though I should seem blameless, I shall be proved perverse. 21 For even if I have sinned, I know it not [in] my soul: but my life is taken away. 22 Wherefore I said, Wrath slays the great and mighty man. 23 For the worthless die, but the righteous are laughed to scorn. 24 For they are delivered into the hands of the unrighteous [man]: he covers the faces of the judges [of the earth]: but if it be not he, who is it? 25 But my life is swifter than a post: [my days] have fled away, and they knew it not. 26 Or again, is there a trace of [their] path [left] by ships? or is there one of the flying eagle as it seeks [its] prey? 27 And if I should say, I will forget to speak, I will bow down my face and groan; 28 I quake in all my limbs, for I know that thou wilt not leave me alone [as] innocent. 29 But since I am ungodly, why have I not died? 30 For if I should wash myself with snow, and purge myself with pure hands, 31 thou hadst thoroughly plunged me in filth, and my garment had abhorred me. 32 For thou art not man like me, with whom I could contend, that we might come together to judgment. 33 Would that [he] our mediator were [present], and a reprover, and one who should hear [the cause] between both. 34 Let him remove [his] rod from me, and let not his fear terrify me: 35 so shall I not be afraid, but I will speak: for I am not thus conscious [of guilt].

Job 10

1 Weary in my soul, I will pour my words with groans upon him: I will speak being straitened in the bitterness of my soul. 2 And I will say to the Lord, Do not teach me to be impious; and wherefore hast thou thus judged me? 3 Is it good before thee if I be unrighteous? for thou hast disowned the work of thy hands, and attended to the counsel of the ungodly. 4 Or dost thou see as a mortal sees? or wilt thou look as a man sees? 5 Or is thy life human, or thy years [the years] of a man, 6 that thou hast enquired into mine iniquity, and searched out my sins? 7 For thou knowest that I have not committed iniquity: but who is he that can deliver out of thy hands? 8 Thy hands have formed me and made me; afterwards thou didst change [thy mind], and smite me. 9 Remember that thou hast made me [as] clay, and thou dost turn me again to earth. 10 Hast thou not poured me out like milk, and curdled me like cheese? 11 And thou didst clothe me with skin and flesh, and frame me with bones and sinews. 12 And thou didst bestow upon me life and mercy, and thy oversight has preserved my spirit. 13 Having these things in thyself, I know that thou canst do all things; for nothing is impossible with thee. 14 And if I should sin, thou watchest me; and thou hast not cleared me from iniquity. 15 Or if I should be ungodly, woe is me: and if I should be righteous, I cannot lift myself up, for I am full of dishonour. 16 For I am hunted like a lion for slaughter; for again thou hast changed and art terribly destroying me; 17 renewing against me my torture: and thou hast dealt with me in great anger, and thou hast brought trials upon me. 18 Why then didst thou bring me out of the womb? and why did I not die, and no eye see me, 19 and I become as if I had not been? for why was I not carried from the womb to the grave? 20 Is not the time of my life short? suffer me to rest a little, 21 before I go whence I shall not return, to a land of darkness and gloominess; 22 to a land of perpetual darkness, where there is no light, neither [can any one] see the life of mortals.

Job 11

1 Then Sophar the Minæan answered and said, 2 He that speaks much, should also hear on the other side: or does the fluent speaker think himself to be righteous? blessed [is] the short-lived offspring of woman. 3 Be not a speaker of many words; for is there none to answer thee? 4 For say not, I am pure in my works, and blameless before him. 5 But oh that the Lord would speak to thee, and open his lips with thee! 6 Then shall he declare to thee the power of wisdom; for it shall be double of that which is with thee: and then shalt thou know, that a just recompence of thy sins has come to thee from the Lord. 7 Wilt thou find out the traces of the Lord? or hast thou come to the end [of that] which the Almighty has made? 8 Heaven [is] high; and what wilt thou do? and there are deeper things than those in hell; what dost thou know? 9 Or longer than the measure of the earth, or the breadth of the sea. 10 And if he should overthrow all things, who will say to him, What hast thou done? 11 For he knows the works of transgressors; and when he sees wickedness, he will not overlook [it]. 12 But man vainly buoys himself up with words; and a mortal born of woman [is] like an ass of the desert. 13 For if thou hast made thine heart pure, and liftest up [thine] hands towards him; 14 if there is any iniquity in thy hands, put it far from thee, and let not unrighteousness lodge in thy habitation. 15 For thus shall thy countenance shine again, as pure water; and thou shalt divest thyself of uncleanness, and shalt not fear. 16 And thou shalt forget trouble, as a wave that has passed by; and thou shalt not be scared. 17 And thy prayer [shall be] as the morning star, and life shall arise to thee [as] from the noon-day. 18 And thou shalt be confident, because thou hast hope; and peace shall dawn to thee from out of anxiety and care. 19 For thou shalt be at ease, and there shall be no one to fight against thee; and many shall charge, and make supplication to thee. 20 But safety shall fail them; for their hope is destruction, and the eyes of the ungodly shall waste away.

1 Corinthians 8

1 Now concerning things sacrificed to idols: We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. 2 But if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he doesn’t yet know as he ought to know. 3 But anyone who loves God is known by him. 4 Therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that no idol is anything in the world, and that there is no other God but one. 5 For though there are things that are called “gods”, whether in the heavens or on earth—as there are many “gods” and many “lords”— 6 yet to us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we live through him. 7 However, that knowledge isn’t in all men. But some, with consciousness of an idol until now, eat as of a thing sacrificed to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. 8 But food will not commend us to God. For neither, if we don’t eat are we the worse, nor if we eat are we the better. 9 But be careful that by no means does this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to the weak. 10 For if a man sees you who have knowledge sitting in an idol’s temple, won’t his conscience, if he is weak, be emboldened to eat things sacrificed to idols? 11 And through your knowledge, he who is weak perishes, the brother for whose sake Christ died. 12 Thus, sinning against the brothers, and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. 13 Therefore, if food causes my brother to stumble, I will eat no meat forever more, that I don’t cause my brother to stumble.